


Ever Has It Been

by LittleObsessions



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Episode Fix-It: s07e25 Endgame (Star Trek: Voyager), F/M, Fluff, Hardly any angst, Romance, romantic smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:14:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23665963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleObsessions/pseuds/LittleObsessions
Summary: "Her name in his mouth is like a prayer, and a curse, and it is the first time in her life she has loved the sound of it.The way he holds onto every syllable and doesn’t want to let it go."An Endgame fix it, because in a time of angst I'm suddenly craving romance. Go figure.
Relationships: Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway
Comments: 19
Kudos: 147





	Ever Has It Been

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Mia Cooper for the Beta, which was quicker than my sudden turnaround in attitude when it comes to fluff.  
> She's a wonderful fandom friend.

* * *

“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”  
― **Kahlil Gibran**

* * *

She doesn’t startle anymore, when the comm rings. When she first returned to Earth, it was all she could do to stop herself from leaping out of her skin every time it bleeped.

She had lost the rhythm of this life; seven years was a painfully – sometimes exquisitely so – long time to be constantly on the edge, nourished by adrenaline, woefully sleep-deprived.

And so alone.

There are moments, still, when she twists in her soft bedsheets at 3 a.m., and she is shocked to realise her body longs for that razor’s edge, just as much as her mind does. 

She always longs.

But when the comm rings, right on time, she manages to control herself just enough to seem composed as she flips the screen up and is greeted by his broad smile.

He always seems as if he’s been waiting on her, and he has, in a way neither of them can articulate. In a way she must apologise for, but it is so big that she doesn’t know how to begin.

“Let me get my-”

“Coffee,” he finishes, and she can hear his smile as she comes to a stall in front of the replicator.

She wants to quell the nervousness she does not want to name in her belly.

“Good day?” She asks, because it is a safe question, and one she knows the answer to.

“Brilliant,” he answers, with a boyish wonder that she wishes she understood, and wants to be part of. “I was helping my sister sow crops. They still do that by hand here…”

He leaves the antiquity in the air for them both to stare at, before she finally gains the courage enough to curl her legs into the sofa and face the screen.

The sun has darkened his skin, brightened his smile, loosened the angry set of his jaw.

He is barely recognisable. Every day, at the same time, this occurs to her. And it makes her ache to touch him, to believe that the happiness is real.

When she looks in the mirror, she barely recognises herself. 

Loathing makes her look shrunken, and so does loneliness.

“You?”

“Being an Admiral is not all it’s cracked up to be,” she shrugs, and takes a sip of the coffee. “I am out of my depth.”

This level of candidness is so easy now that she bears him no responsibility, and it’s easy to admit it to him.

It is so easy to be honest with him; and so dangerous too.

“I imagine it’s a big change, give it time,” he says softly, and she sees worry crease his brow for a moment. “You are the cleverest woman I know.”

It’s the change she always wanted, and yet she’s come to discover that want and need are very different beasts.

She waves an airy hand, dismisses his concern because his kindness makes her skin crawl, for she is so unworthy of his praise.

“You look so happy,” she comments, trying to keep the wistfulness out of her voice, trying to calm the roaring ache she has to share it with him.

She knows where she is not wanted. She knows, more importantly, when she has missed her chance.

She burned all of her bridges with him, razing all of the possibilities that used to dance in his eyes to the ground.

The fact he affords her the pity of a call each day seems saintlier an act than she deserves, all things considered.

But he has always been loyal.

“I am…” he says, and there is something unfinished about it.

“Well that’s good,” she smiles, and knows it doesn’t reach her eyes.

And then they talk about her commission, and her new assignment as the Admiral in Charge of Scientific Endeavours, and it is safe, and easy, and she is able to hold back all the apologies, all the pleas, all the pain that she so wants to share.

And she wonders if he will ever forgive her.

Or if she’ll ever forgive herself.

**-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-**

She has another shattering day at the Admiralty, trying to learn the ropes of a job she thought she was made for, to toe the line of a narrative she has seen well beyond.

She feels like a jigsaw piece that doesn’t fit: somehow looking the part, but not quite the right size on close inspection.

She is not welcome in this world; she knows too much now, and even though Owen Paris has guiltily tried to shield her from it, she knows that her promotion is unwelcomed by the vast majority. They were her father’s people and she know things about them she shouldn’t, but just as equally they know all of her sins.

It makes her unable to look any of them in the eye. And they can barely hide their grimaces.

She tries to tell herself she will eventually break through this, but it is eating away at her.

Her attempts leave her exhausted, and by the time she is packing her briefcase she is so tightly coiled that she can barely concentrate enough to gather all of the things she needs.

She comms her personal trainer – Starfleet-ordered, no less – and cancels, and promises herself wine and ice cream and a call to her mother.

Just as she is about to leave, there is a sharp rap on her office door before it opens to reveal Nechayev.

“Come in Admiral,” she says, trying to muster a smile.

She can’t really be bothered with this; she doesn’t dislike Nechayev, but she finds her antagonistic and overbearing, and she’s not sure she has the mental fortitude to spar with her after such a trying day.

But something about Nechayev’s posture tells her this is not an attack.

“Would you like a seat?”

Nechayev waves her hand to dismiss the suggestion.

“I am just on my way home. I see you are too,” she comes towards Kathryn.

“To a replicator and a rubbish sleep,” she says, before she even realises it’s coming out.

She kicks herself almost instantly but Nechayev smiles a knowing smile.

“They’re putting you through the wringer, because they like to do that. Starfleet’s Brass is a boy’s club at its heart, and they’re bastards…”

The profanity catches her off guard, though she’s inclined to agree. She stays silent though, knowing she can neither disagree nor add much to the sentiment.

But she does manage a smile.

“Don’t let them beat you,” Nechayev leans in. “And look them in the eye. They couldn’t have lived a second of what you went through; that’s why you terrify them.”

Kathryn knows she terrifies them – of course she does – and while Nechayev is being very genuine, she can’t quite believe her.

“Thank you,” she nods and Nechayev turns to go.

“I won’t go easy on you, Kathryn, but don’t think I haven’t been where you are. Have a good weekend, look after yourself, and find something to lift that weight off your shoulders.”

She nods again, and watches Nechayev go.

She isn’t stupid enough to think they’ll become firm friends; Nechayev is much too similar to her, and she knows by instinct that close female friendships are – much like herself – not important to Nechayev, but she is relieved to know she has an ally.

Her steps are somewhat lighter as she leaves headquarters and heads back to her apartment, knowing the one thing that might lift the weight from her shoulders would be a call from him.

She stops short at her door, her automatic stride and line of vision broken by a pair of worn leather boots, and jeans, loitering outside her door.

“You suit that pip.”

She doesn’t want to look up, because she’s not sure she can manage to maintain anything close to a façade.

But of course she does, because she also enjoys misery as much as she enjoys peace.

He is smiling – bright, casual – but just below the surface she can see anxiety and something that looks like yearning, but she can’t bring herself to believe it. He is resting against the wall outside her apartment, a holdall at his feet, his hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans.

He looks so very real, so very believable. He must have taken the first flight out of Arizona to be here.

Innumerable questions present themselves, but she just swallows.

“Thank you.”

He nods towards her door.

“I got the right address then?”

She nods again and takes the remaining steps towards the door.

She is suddenly hyper-conscious of how close he is, of the smell of him and his nearness. 

Of the deep, comfortable silence she was missing. 

Of him.

Of how deeply her miss of him runs.

Something – a pulse of longing – beats between them, and that is all it takes as she pushes open the door.

He follows her in, discarding his holdall at the door and she turns as it falls closed softly behind them.

“Kathryn…”

She feels out of her body as she reaches out and clutches his face between her hands and pushes up onto her tiptoes to press her lips to his.

If he startles, it’s only because he is no doubt shocked by her sudden gesture, but there is only a split second before he mirrors her own posture, his palm cupping her jaw.

He tastes of contentment, of a resolution a long time in the making, of parameters she wishes she’d never dared construct.

Of regret.

And of a love spanning so many of her mistakes, her ugliness, her ambition.

His hands move onto her shoulders, gripping her as if she is likely to disappear at any moment. It spurs her on to prove otherwise, and she tries to push herself nearer him, to prove herself in a way she has never wanted to, not to any man before.

She curls her fingers around his neck, enjoys the feel of his hands skimming her ribs, her sides, curling around to rest under her rear and lift her off of the ground.

She wants to submit in a full, vital way, to every second of this encounter, in the hope that investing will pay off.

And this time, when he asks to stay, she won’t even have to think about her answer.

She locks her legs around his hips, is carried by him – stumbling – to press against the wall.

“Kathryn…” he murmurs, soft and deliberate and so knowingly as he trails his lips from her mouth to her jaw, from her jaw to her neck.

Her name in his mouth is like a prayer, and a curse, and it is the first time in her life she has loved the sound of it.

The way he holds onto every syllable and doesn’t want to let it go.

The way he holds _her_ , transcending everything she wishes he would not.

“Kathryn…” his hands start on the closure of her uniform jacket, and she arches her back to allow him ease of access. “I can’t pretend anymore, I can’t –”

She closes one hand over his own, and pulls away from their kiss to look into his eyes and the anguish, the sparking hope, the sheer desperate nature of the want in his eyes takes her breath away.

She hopes he can see all of that in her eyes too.

“We don’t have to,” she breathes, solemn in her vow.

His shoulders visibly sag, and it is sore, for just a moment, to see that her betrayal of him has cut so deep that he could believe that of her – even as she is trying to show him, now, that she wants him without reservation.

She deserves his scepticism and his fear. She sowed all of those little seeds of doubt across their seven years of fighting and perilous flirting and unspoken vows and inarticulate desire.

She doesn’t blame him, but she needs him to know.

“If you want, if you will stay, this is for keeps. Because….” She swallows, tries to subdue the tears that want to flow. “Because I love you, and I have for a very long time. And if you –”

He brings his fingers to her lips, stops her mid-sermon, and she smiles against his hot skin.

“Say it again,” he says. “And that’s all I need. I have faith.”

He’s a fool – he should know better than that – but his trust in her fills her with a deep satisfaction that she hasn’t felt for a long, long time.

Like everything else which felt light, which felt like goodness and compassion, she left this feeling somewhere in the Delta Quadrant.

And he is giving it back to her; open, honest, vulnerable.

She doesn’t know that she could love him any more than she does in this moment.

“I love you,” she says, a simple litany and the easiest truth she has spoken in a long time.

“I love you too,” he promises. “And I am going nowhere.”

This time it is he who claims her mouth, and she submits to him – her body an act of adjuration – and she unwinds her legs from his hips and leads him to the bed, where she has slept only with loneliness since their return.

She has never been coy with her body – it isn’t in her nature – but she has played this scenario so many times in her own head that she fears the reality will be a crushing disappointment.

That his eyes will alight on her exhausted, ageing body and wonder what it was that he desired in the first place.

“I want you,” he murmurs, sensing her hesitation. “I have always wanted you.”

She feels much the same about him, and her initial hesitation is soothed by that. She looks up at his face – his greying temples, the lines gathering around his eyes – and is no less hungry for him than she ever was.

He doesn’t ask permission – he doesn’t need it – and he begins divesting her of her jacket and her undershirt, hands impatient and gentle all at once as they cup skin beneath the lace of her bra.

It has been so long that she can’t recall the last time someone touched her like this. And if she forced herself to, she would remember that it was an act of sheer release; that the last man she took to her bed did not have hands reverent with restraint, that man’s hands were not trembling with desperation.

These hands are familiar, and they have held her back from innumerable precipices.

They make her feel beautiful.

He drops to his knees in front of her, removes her boots and socks and slides them away, and then his fingers find the fastening of her pants at her hip.

She threads her fingers into his hair, enjoys the satisfaction on his face as he slides her pants down and she steps out of them.

He leans forward, kisses the skin just above her underwear.

“Lie on the bed.”

Her own submission to this act is clear when she doesn’t hesitate, lying down on the bed quietly.

The truth is, she is excited by lovers when they take control – she has never been especially vanilla, and not least of all with a lover she loves – but she doesn’t usually follow orders without even a feigned reluctance.

It isn’t in her nature.

But then again, Chakotay knows her better – at times – than she knows herself.

He is fully clothed as he looms over her for a moment, brushing her hair back from her face as he draws up nearer to her.

“I am going to eat you until you come. Because I know watching you come will be beautiful.”

If she wasn’t already coiled tight with anticipation, the brazen confidence in his words set her alight with desperation.

She is a little taken aback by it, but only because it delights her that he seems to know what she needs here – and is willing to fulfil that role.

“I don’t want a quick fuck…” he trails his lips over her breast, mouth grazing over her nipple.

She hisses involuntarily at the sensation, and pleasure floods onto his face.

“You enjoy that?”

“Yes,” she admits, not even embarrassed by the desperate husk of her own words.

He does it again, his other hand coming up to palm her other breast just on the right side of rough.

He trails his tongue leisurely down her sternum, then into the dip of her abdomen. She feels the hard press of his erection grazing against her thigh and breathes a sigh of relief.

“I don’t want a quick fuck right now, because there will be plenty of time for that. And trust me; they’ve been the centre of many of my fantasies. On your desk, on our couches, on far-flung exotic beaches. There will be lots of time for words, and apologies, and your lengthy speeches.”

He pulls her panties down and slides them from her legs and he is kneeling between her thighs.

He looks up at her, and she is so lost in his rhapsody she is breathless and can barely find the energy to concentrate on anything but what it feels like to finally give in.

But she loves him. She loves him more than she realised she could.

“I want to show you how much I want you,” he pushes her thighs apart, his hands curling round her pale flesh to hold them in place. “I want to show you how much I have always wanted you. I want to make love to you until you finally give in to me.”

But what he doesn’t realise – just yet - is that she already has.

And it is already a type of bliss.


End file.
